Contents

History

Ian and Anthony are best friends who had regularly made videos together ever since high school, which they uploaded on YouTube and the website Smosh.com. At first, Smosh only consisted of half the pair. Anthony used to make flash games and movies on Newgrounds.com under the name "Smosh." The name Smosh originated when Anthony's friend was talking about a mosh pit, and he accidentally said "Smosh Pit" instead. This became an inside joke between Ian, Anthony, and their friends.

Their rise to fame started in the fall of 2005 during YouTube's early days. The videos they made then were extremely different to their videos now. Smosh's earliest videos were music videos of theme songs from video games or television shows recorded in Anthony's bedroom. One of Smosh's earliest videos uploaded on November 28, 2005 was the Pokemon Theme Song. It was an extremely big hit for the early channel as from March 12 to May 19, 2006, it was the most viewed video on YouTube from being at 4,300,000 views by the time it surpassed eggtea's "Myspace- The Movie" sketch comedy video as the most viewed video to 10,600,000 views before being surpassed by Judson Laipply's "Evolution of Dance" video. It remained on YouTube for at least 6 months with over 24,000,000 views before it was taken off due to copyright issues. Shogakukan Productions Co., Ltd. forced YouTube to remove the video for copyright infringement. All of this publicity made Smosh become the most subscribed channel on YouTube with nearly 3,000 subscribers however they were shortly surpassed by Judison Liapply.

The duo soon stopped making music videos as often and moved onto comical 'episodes' which would become what they are most famous for. These started off with short videos such as Dolls and Stranded. But later on, they turned to full 3-5 minute long skits and shows. The plots of these episodes would be about anything, from Ian's birthday to Disney movies.

Due to this, the comedy channel would become the most subscribed twice more, throughout 2007 to 2013.

During that time, in July, 2011, Smosh was bought by Alloy Digital (now Defy Media).

On June 14, 2017, Anthony officially left Smosh, leaving Ian now as the leader of Smosh. Now, their videos are usually longer skits, with more detailed plots and an older audience aim. Recently, Smosh issued their first game show on the channel where it features other YouTubers.

Over their twelve years on YouTube, Smosh has expanded from a single channel of two teenagers making short sketches into a brand with a full cast, five official channels, multiple awards and nominations, a fully scripted series and two films.

Video Series

Most of their videos are inappropriate, but are rated green in the age and content holder. A few of them have been flagged, such as "How to Hide a Boner in Public!" and "I'm Naked!". Both of those videos can be viewed at Smosh.com. Smosh sometimes makes episodic videos like "I Lost My Hair!" and "Homeless Millionaire!" and the Life as Ghosts series in 2008. Since 2017, Smosh has released a game show on their channel titled "You Posted That?" Also in 2017, select Smosh videos and thumbnails, some of which had been in place for over a decade, were changed, most likely to coincide with the advertisers' wishes of nothing in YouTube videos of a sexual, violent, or otherwise crass nature. This trend still continues along with Smosh's content starting to feature less cursing and offensive jokes.

Video Productivity

Past

Smosh videos have been upgrading in content and quality since their debut in 2005. Usually, it will take about 2 weeks to make a complex 3-5 minute long Smosh video, with the filming, editing, and producing.

In an interview, Anthony said that it didn't take much work to come up with a video idea. The first thing they do is think of 4 or 5 different ideas, and discuss them. After the video idea is decided, they think about who will do what and when. In the same interview, Ian said that he's the one who comes up with most of the ideas, and Anthony extends them.

As part of the process, Ian said he would edit for a few hours before confronting Anthony to discuss it. When they found a video idea they both decided on, they would start working on a script to go with it.

Anthony said when it came time to shoot the video, they would collect some friends and producers that would make sure to get the properties and location for it.

When they're writing, they try not to make the ideas too complex because it's a lot of work to find certain locations, and they have to shoot every week.

Ian said that the process of producing a single video is never start-to-finish, but gradual. While Ian is writing, Anthony is editing a video that was filmed 2 weeks ago.

Anthony was usually the one who chooses the clips to be added onto the video with the help of their Professional Editor that guides him. 70% of the final video is chosen by their editor and 30% of it is either thrown or just another idea added in for fun. Then Ian would go in and edit the bloopers and extra components on his own.

It takes about 12 hours, on average, to complete the entire editing process.

Present

Since then, Smosh has gotten a production crew that helps them out with their video ideas from plot, script, scenery and props, and about everything that comes out of the video. Ian and Anthony said in an interview that they usually put out ideas that they find funny and hope that their audience finds them funny too. Then the Smosh squad or Smosh crew expands them, sometimes even makes them. Due to the abundance of people these days, it takes much less time to think of an idea, make the video and edit it. These are reasons that influenced Anthony's decision to leave Smosh because the presence of a production crew and being owned by a company made his creative ideas have to "go through a filter".

Frequent comments, especially after the departure of Anthony, state they dislike the direction Smosh is going in and find Smosh's older style videos more creative and entertaining.

Anthony Leaves Smosh

On June 14, 2017, Anthony left Smosh to become an independent creator on his own channel AnthonyPadilla. He explains in a video on his channel that he felt like since Smosh was now a brand owned by a company all his creative decisions had to go "through a filter". In a reaction video uploaded by Lasercorn a few hours later he explained that he expected Ian to see what all he could get out of the Smosh Squad and that Smosh will continue on just fine comparing it to how Saturday Night Live (SNL) is. Half a year after his departure, Smosh dropped from the eighth to the eighteenth most subscribed YouTube channel.

Trivia

In an interview, Ian and Anthony said that the longest time they took in editing a video without sleep was 36 hours in editing their Food Battle 2009 video. They swore they would never do it again.

Smosh was featured in the official YouTubetribute "Rewind YouTube Style 2012" (they first appear at 1:24). In the video, they are apparently members of the Propulsion Laboratory, but when their space probe explodes, they start crying and Anthony calls Felicia Day.

Other than PSY, the singer of the main soundtrack, Anthony was the only person in the video to speak with his real voice (the others lip synced to the music).

They also appeared in the YouTube 2013 rewind video (YouTube Rewind: What Does 2013 Say?), in this video they were in an RV wearing green aprons, lab goggles and tighty-whiteys, a clear reference to AMC's Breaking Bad.

Smosh has been in every YouTube Rewind since 2012, exception to 2016 and 2017. Anthony Padilla took part in 2017's YouTube Rewind, but was not associated or affiliated with the entire Smosh cast who didn't take part in it.

​Smosh created their own Magazine, and kept retweeting people's picture of them with the Smosh Magazine. Only two issues of the magazine were produced.